He didn’t waste any more time.
He got a grip on the dividing wall and hauled himself up, scrambled on to the sloping roof of the outhouse. So far, so good—but it was the easy part he had done up to now. Approaching the lower window of the house he found he could look over the sill into the room beyond. The window was, as he had thought, uncurtained, and after a moment or two he could begin to make out the dark interior. It didn’t seem to be furnished in the normal way; it had a deserted look, and yet there were stacks of. . . of what?
He peered intently through the glass, and as his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom he realized that the room was full of crates of bottles. Then he understood. This room was probably used as a store by the club, part of whose premises the house itself must in fact be. If he could get in, there would be a staircase up to the landing above, off which must be a room adjoining the other one, the next-door room where the meeting was going on. Most of these old terrace houses were twins one of the other. . . .
Shaw pulled himself up and sat on the sill, then fumbled at the window and tried to heave it open.
It was locked. He reached into his pocket and brought out a stout, thin-bladed clasp-knife. He pushed the blade down between the join of the upper and lower frames, then pushed sideways until he felt the catch click back. Then very carefully, very slowly, he edged the bottom window up and pulled himself over the sill. He dropped down into the room. Feeling his way cautiously past the crates of empties, he found the door and opened it. He inched out into a pitch-dark passage, groped for the stairs. He moved as silently as a cat up the staircase, stopping on each step before moving carefully to the next. He went into the room—it seemed to be a bedroom—directly above the one he had just left.
Once inside, he could hear vague sounds through the party wall from next door, but there was nothing identifiable.
He would have to get out of the window after all.
He inched the window up, pausing petrified as it squeaked. He climbed out on to the sill. He knew a brief moment of dizziness as he looked downward to some derelict flowerbeds and an overgrown strip of coarse lawn, and then he took a grip on his nerves, kept his eyes firmly on his objective of the next-door window, and stepped boldly across the gap, moving sideways with his arms spread against the grimy brickwork, feeling with a foot before letting go of the storehouse window entirely. A moment later the sill of the club window was firm and wide beneath him, and he let go, sliding his hands carefully across the remaining brickwork of the wall until he was standing squarely on the sill.
He stayed there motionless, feeling the beating of his heart, controlling his rapid breathing, holding steady against the wind which curled round the corner of the building to drive a light rain into his already wet dinner-jacket.
Voices came to him, voices raised in a weird, fantastic sing-song chant, which after a moment or two faded away into silence. Then there was a man’s voice with a curious echo effect behind it. Shaw strained his ears, but he couldn’t make out what was being said. Soon the voice died away and there was another short silence, then again the eerie chanting.
Shaw felt a chill in his heart.
Those people—assuming that the Africans who had left the room below on the albino’s whispered instructions had come up here, as Shaw believed they had—some of them, at least, had been reasonable looking citizens. If those people could be induced to come to a place like this, to take part in whatever was going on inside there, what hope was there that the masses in Africa itself would hold aloof from the Cult—if this was indeed connected with the Cult? They would never cast off the insidious dope that was being fed to them, stirring them up to acts which they would never perform if they were left to themselves.
Thick curtains were drawn across, but, as Shaw had seen from the next-door garden, the window was open a little way at its top. He reached in, very gently put a finger in the join of the curtains, and edged them aside, just a fraction at a time until he had a clear view of the centre of the room.
He drew in his breath sharply, unbelievingly.
The room was brightly lit and perfectly commonplace; it was what was going on in that room, shown up the more vividly by the contrast with the ordinariness of the room itself, that gave Shaw the shock.
At the far end, immediately before a heavy curtain of blood-coloured velvet, was a plain wooden table like a kitchen table, the deal legs visible beneath the folds of a white cloth. Against this startling background the polished ebony of a young coloured girl’s body stood sharply out. The girl was quivering, quivering throughout her body, and she was making a low moaning sound which Shaw could hear quite clearly as the chanting once again died away. Shaw didn’t recall having seen this girl in the room below, and for that matter there were many more Negroes present than had been down there; there was no doubt another way in—a funk-hole, which would be used for a quick getaway if anything should happen, such as a police raid. As he watched and wondered, his horror and revulsion growing, the velvet curtains behind the ‘altar’ began very slowly to draw apart, and as they did so the same voice as before, still with its curious background effect, began what Shaw fancied was a kind of prayer, while from somewhere to the left and out of his range of vision there began the throb of African drums, a slow, erotic beat which filled the room and gave the atmosphere a feeling of hate and cruelty and fear.
The gap in the curtains widened, behind the ‘altar.’
In the centre, seated on a low stool and dressed in native costume, was a big African with a fuzz of greying hair, a man who had just about the most sadistic face that Shaw had ever seen. The thick lips, sensual lips, were parted in a kind of ecstacy as he looked down at the girl on the ‘altar.’ Next to this person a white man sat, a bald, flabby man dressed—so incongruously in these surroundings—in ordinary workaday City clothing of neat pin-stripe suit and highly polished black shoes. The shirt and tie were a little too well matched, a little too expensive-looking. . . the man was plumply dandified, overdressed, overfed. His general air was that of the faked-up expense account and of self-indulgence, and he had a vaguely foreign look about him. Two more Africans were standing on either side of this man and the big black.
The Africans’ eyes rolled as the drumbeats increased the tempo, and their hips began to sway as if in automatic, almost involuntary response. Shaw could sense the heavy, intent breathing of the audience, the glazed eyes, the halfopen, slack mouths. It was much the same sort of reaction as he had observed in the room below during the strip acts. Indeed, this ritual, this initiation ceremony as it most probably was, clearly had a sexual origin.
Suddenly the drums ceased and the chant broke off.
It was an anticlimax, a sudden cutting of the tension which left the ear and the mind high and dry for a moment. Then Shaw heard the mutter from the audience and noticed the faint trail of smoke rising from a metal vessel behind the ‘altar,’ saw one of the Africans move towards it and pull out a glowing iron. He saw this man approach the girl on the table, saw the terrified gleam in her eyes, and then the man reached out and jabbed the red-hot iron on to her right forearm, just below the elbow. . . .
There was no doubt left now, if there had been earlier, as to the origins of this meeting.
The girl screamed—one short, sharp, yelping cry, like a whipped dog. Her body writhed, convulsed; the knees jerked up, parted. A deep-throated baying sound came from the onlookers, a savage, primitive expression of satisfaction, of cruelty and sensuality brought to a fine point. As the girl’s convulsions ceased the big African in the centre of the group stood up, and another black handed him a squawking, protesting bundle of feathers which he had brought out from behind. . . a chicken. The white man on the central figure’s left hand came forward as the bird was held poised, with its neck extended, over the girl’s body, and he sliced a sharp knife straight along its neck.
Blood poured, spattered down over the girl, the crimson on the black, spreading over her breasts, running on to
the dead-white of the cloth. The angry weal on her forearm stood out sharply until it too was covered in the sacrificial blood.
The ceremony itself had ended abruptly after that rite had been performed and it appeared that no one else was going to be initiated. There was a low murmur of talk but Shaw, as before, was quite unable to catch what it was about. From what he could see, it appeared that the meeting was about to break up.
There was nothing he could do here; one man against that mob wouldn’t get very far, and he had to be free to tell of what he had seen. In any case, it would be useless to try to hold them here at gun-point if he had no way of getting a message through to the Outfit. He had to get away fast and ring Latymer, get him to send a couple of men along to tail that big African and the white man.
He reached sideways, feeling for the other window-sill, and started to swing away from the horrible room inside. He was groping for that next-door ledge with one foot when he slipped. There was one awful moment when he felt that he must fall and then he managed to retain a precarious balance. He sweated, moved a leg tentatively.
As he did so his left knee struck hard against the window-pane.
He heard the startled shout from inside, and then, as he tried desperately to scramble across the narrow gap to safety, he heard the snap of an authoritative voice—a European voice, he fancied, “Away you go—everybody out!”
There was a hurried scrape of chairs, the sound of feet furiously on the move. A moment later the curtains were ripped aside. The albino and another man, the white man whom he had seen before, stood there framed in the light streaming out, illuminating Shaw. Both men had revolvers in their hands. As the albino started to fling the bottom window up, Shaw kicked out hard, drove his shoe through the glass, viciously. The window broke inward in a shower of jagged ends; the white man cursed, dabbed at a nasty cut on his cheek, and then fired blindly through the smashed window. There was an explosion in the room and a bullet whistled between Shaw’s legs, and went off into the night, zinged against some guttering on the roof at the back of the club; the sudden crash had made Shaw move instinctively, only a little but enough to send him right off balance this time. His arms went up and he fell backward, the lighted room rushing past him as a yellow blur. He was just conscious of his body striking flat into what felt like a hedge and then something caught his head and he went out.
As he did so a police whistle shrilled in the street in rear of the club.
Shaw came round to find a man in blue bending over him, while another man, with a stethoscope hung around his neck, dabbed at his head with a lint pad.
He heard this man say confidently, “He’s coming round, Inspector. No real damage.”
He closed his eyes again as the room swung round him in circles, then some minutes later he opened them again and asked weakly, “Where am I—what happened?”
A voice said sourly, “You’re in the nick.”
“The nick . . . but—how did I get here?”
“As if you didn’t know!” The voice went on, beating into Shaw’s aching head. “Soon as you’re fit, you’ll be charged with attempting to break into and enter the Ship’s Biscuit Club, in Corner—”
“Oh, will I.” Shaw sat up, winced, put a hand to his head. His mouth felt dry and it had a nasty taste in it.
The Inspector said, “That’s right.”
“But I can explain! Look. . . somebody fired at me, and—”
He saw the Inspector look away above his head as though catching the eye of somebody behind him. Another uniformed man moved forward and cleared his throat, then began reading out a charge and caution. When this man had finished the Inspector said, “If you’ve got anything to say which’ll help, I’ll listen. But I may as well tell you, no one in that club admits firing that shot and every one can account for his or her movements. We found a Webley .38 on you, admittedly unfired. But—we found no other firearm on the premises.”
Shaw said witheringly, “No, I bet you didn’t. And I don’t suppose you got even a smell of the people I was watching through that window either. Now look—just get on the phone, fast as you can. Ring the Admiralty, ask for a Mr Latymer. And for God’s sake, man—hurry!"
The Inspector’s face was extremely red a few minutes later. Handing the telephone to Shaw, he said, “Mr Latymer wants a word with you, sir. And I hope you’ll accept my apologies.”
Shaw took the receiver. Latymer’s voice came through, metallic, cold and distant.
“Ah—Shaw. Don’t let’s waste time. I’ve squared things with that Station Inspector without having to go into too many details—you know what I mean. Now I want the whole story from you.”
“Right, sir.” Shaw told him everything as briefly as he could, and when he had finished Latymer thought for a moment, grunted, and then said.
“We’ll have to leave the club to the police now, but I’ll talk to the Inspector again and try to persuade him to haul that albino in for questioning—he can fake up a charge, I’ve no doubt. The rest of ’em will be clear away now, of course. Apart from the albino, all we seem to have is the description of the white man at the ceremony, and the African who was in charge of the proceedings. Right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s not much to go on, but I’ll get Carberry to check
through the Rogue’s Gallery on the off-chance and see if we can pick up any leads. I’ll let you know in the morning if we get anything out of the albino. How’re you feeling, Shaw?”
“All right now, sir. I’ll manage.”
Latymer said irritably, “I think you’ve managed enough for one night. Clumsy ass. If you can’t keep your balance you’d better stay on the ground in future. Go home to bed.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I—”
“Yes, yes, yes, I’m not blaming you really, my boy. Just bad luck. But I’ve given you an order. Go home to bed. There’s nothing more you can do to-night. Give me that Inspector again.”
Shaw handed the receiver over, waited on a hard chair in the bare, functional room while the Inspector spoke. He’d muffed it all right to-night. . . whatever Latymer had said about not blaming him, the Old Man hadn’t been pleased. And no wonder.
The Inspector finished his talk with Latymer and rang off, looking embarrassed and sorry for himself still. He said, “I’ll see that a car’s put at your disposal, sir.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather not.” Shaw grinned. “Can’t afford to draw attention to myself by having a police car outside my flat! But I’d be glad if one of your chaps would find me a taxi. . . .”
Three minutes later they told him a taxi was waiting, and, with his revolver restored to him, he went outside into a blustery night with fast clouds scudding across a clear, windy sky. He looked up, just as a brilliant ball of light came up majestically from the northern horizon, seemed to hang poised for a moment, and then sailed on across London, spinning through space.
Bluebolt One, southbound towards Africa on one more orbit, one more circumnavigation.
Sitting back in the taxi as he was driven to West Kensington, Shaw wondered how much longer that satellite would sail on, free, untroubled, aloof above the world’s heads.
CHAPTER EIGHT
That night Shaw’s sleep was disturbed, full of nightmare figures, shadowy, menacing forms set against the dark backcloth of Africa. It was still very early and he was dead out when the telephone bell rang beside his bed. The harsh jangle of the public line tore through layers of returning consciousness, bringing him wide awake and sweating. He reached out hazily for the handset.
Thick with his disturbed sleep, he said, “Shaw here.”
And then all sleep vanished and he sat bolt upright. The voice was making an effort at steadiness, and it said, “It’s me. Gillian Ross. I’ve just had a phone-call. It was a man who said he was speaking for the one I told you about—Sam Wiley.”
“Go on.” Shaw sat tense, every nerve in his body jumping, the pain nagging again at his guts. That pain told him, if nothing e
lse did, that events were about to start moving properly at last, that pain which would be with him now until the moment of action came, and then would pass, forgotten in the chase.
The girl said, “Sam Wiley, the man said, has some information for me. He wouldn’t give it over the phone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He wants me to go along and see him.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere! Where are you to go?”
“He wouldn’t say that either. There’ll be a man to meet me at Tower Hill station, at half-past eleven this morning. On the eastbound platform. He’ll take me to Sam Wiley, and I’ve got to be absolutely alone.”
“Description? I mean, who have you to look out for?”
She said, “He didn’t tell me that. He said the man would know me, and he would make the contact.”
“Uh-huh. . . now, what did you say—what was your reaction?”
“Well, I told him to go and take a running jump,” she said. “I’m not a child, Commander Shaw. It’s a pretty obvious trap, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it certainly is.” Shaw’s face was tense. “What was his answer to that?”
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